Catherwood LibraryILR School

A study recently released by the National Employment Law Project finds that jobs paying less than $14 per hour have seen the most growth during the recovery and that jobs that pay more have declined in proportion of total employment compared with before the recession. The recession increased the number of households dependent on one income and that hasn?t changed much during the recovery. Randy Albelda of the University of Massachusetts at Boston estimates that between 10 to 14 percent of all adult workers in the U.S. earn less than $14 per hour and are the sole stable source of income in their household. Professor Albelda?s research also shows that about half of Americans who earn less than $11 per hour, about 20 million people, are the primary breadwinners for their household. According to the Economic Mobility Project, part of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the percent of families that require two incomes to match the income of a sole breadwinner of a generation prior, meaning that the income brought in by one person on average is proportionally less than the income brought in by a person in a similar situation about twenty years ago.